Why we need to market Bitcoin to the rest of the world

For those of us that live and breathe Bitcoin, WE GET IT! We understand that we are part of the “next big thing”. We know that we are sitting at the threshold of the next financial and technological revolution. We are the ones that are living on reddit.com/r/bitcoin, reading Coindesk and CoinTelegraph every morning, and have our twitter feeds set for everything crypto. But for the remaining 95% of the world’s population, Bitcoin is just a word they have heard but don’t understand, not unlike Net Neutrality.

Unfortunately, most of what they remember or think they’ve heard about Bitcoin is negative. Ask anyone standing in the Bitcoin booth at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) this year. Instead of spending their time talking about the features and benefits of their respective products; they spent most of their time answering basic questions: What is it? Why do I need it? Isn’t it just for criminals? Or may favorite, I’ve heard of it but can you explain it to me from the beginning? It’s for this reason I think Bitcoin companies need to do more education and marketing the general public and less to one another. Do we really need another Bitcoin conference?

We need to take Bitcoin to the market and not expect that the market is going to find Bitcoin. The “If you build it they will come,” approach isn’t really working. Too many great advancements and companies are being overlooked because the market doesn’t know enough to understand a great product or company from an OK one. Take Bitcoin wallets for an example. Business and consumers don’t know the difference between and account, a hot wallet, a cold wallet or a multi-sig wallet. It’s up to us to guide them and we need marketing to do that.

How we market is not as important as the message, or at least not now (that will change), but what we really need let everyone know if that Bitcoin is for everyone. That’s it’s not some scary technology living on the dark web. It’s open and available for everyone to experience and use. So, whether it’s the mass sports marketing approach, i.e. the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl , NASCAR, NBA, NBL, NFL, etc., or the targeted ad buys and tradeshow approach, Bitcoin needs to be in front of the market each and every day. We need to control the message of how Bitcoin will change the way the world will transact in the future.

Some in the space say it’s too soon for marketing,” we” need to focus on building out the technology. They do have a point, the technology interfaces that are required for mass business and consumer adoption are still underdevelopment or just outlines on a whiteboard. But if you don’t start now, someone else will or most likely already is and then where will Bitcoin be?

This post was written by Stephanie L. Wargo, Bitcoin Freelance Marketing Consultant